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Wilde’s first thought, when he wakes up, is this isn’t real.
He knows it’s ridiculous. He comes to properly in his bed, in Vic’s flat, his safe warm bed with his stuffed-animal giraffe and glow in the dark star stickers and jellyfish lamp pulsing away on his bookshelf. Of course it’s real.
Right?
When he checks his phone, it’s 4 in the morning. He can already hear Vic in the kitchen, because his dad is insane, so he gets out of bed too and tugs on socks.
His thoughts keep racing as he pulls a hoodie over his head.
Of course this is real. It’s Vic’s house. He’s safe at Vic’s house.
You thought you were safe in the mindscape, too, something deep in his skull reminds him, and he shakes his head until he gets dizzy.
“That was different,” he says aloud, picking at a string dangling out of his sleeve. “That— that wasn’t real. That was Mindbend. This is real.”
Prove it.
Wilde feels a little sick.
He ignores the voice in the back of his head and leaves his room, padding down the hall to where he can feel Vic.
“Ayy, there’s the pup!” Vic beams a sharp-toothed grin at him. He’s standing at the oven, already making pancakes, and Wilde’s can’t help but smile a little bit. “You’re up early.”
“I set my alarm for the wrong time,” Wilde lies, walking into the kitchen and letting himself get enveloped in a warm hug. “Didn’t wanna go back to sleep.”
This isn’t fake. Vic isn’t fake. The big hand wrapping him into his side isn’t fake. This is real.
Uh-huh.
Vic notices something’s up, because he always notices something’s up, and he pulls away a little to examine Wilde’s face.
Wilde keeps his expression carefully open. Sleepy, content, masking all the anxiety simmering in his chest like a deep pit.
“…Go sit down,” Vic says after a second, and Wilde heads for the kitchen table to wait for his plate of pancakes.
The rest of the day continues much the same. The stupid thoughts come creeping back in, and every time they get harder to push back out, and every time Vic notices and doesn’t say anything about it.
Everything gets to a tipping point eventually.
You’re hurting people, the voice in the base of his brain stem tells him. Out there. Don’t you want to fix it? Don’t you want to stop him?
I’m not hurting anyone, Wilde thinks back, pretending to pay attention to the show Vic’s watching. Wilde’s curled up in his chair— an old, overstuffed paisley thing that’s probably older than he is— and the show keeps doing some mind-numbing laugh track.
That’s what you said last time, the voice coos, and Wilde can’t help but shudder a little. Vic glances over and Wilde gives him a smile. You remember last time, don’t you? When you were too happy with your dead family to stop yourself from killing all those people. All those people don’t have families anymore because of you.
Wilde stands up with a start.
Vic looks over immediately, face creasing into his worried frown. “Kid?”
“I’m gonna go to bed,” Wilde says weakly, and hurries down the hall to his room.
Fuck. What— what sort of things are you supposed to use to wake yourself up? Cold water, maybe, or— pain.
Oh. Pain. He’s good at pain.
No matter what he’s told Vic, he still has his stash of blades. It’s not like he’s been planning to relapse, it’s just— it’s nice to have them, sort of. To know they’re there.
So he digs through his closet until he finds the little baggie of razor blades and he dumps them out onto his hand and picks one out and stares at it, for a long few moments, before bringing it to the back of his wrist and carefully pressing down.
Blood wells, surprisingly easy. It comes up in little bubbles, and the pain is sharp, and he doesn’t wake up he doesn’t go anywhere.
Deeper, maybe.
—
Down the hall, Victor knows something’s up when he smells blood.
It’s coming from Wilde’s room. Thing is, kid’s terrified of blood. Hates it. Looks away whenever it’s onscreen, makes disgusted noises whenever people talk about it. It isn’t a thing that they usually bring up Oh God.
Vic can’t get down the hall fast enough.
When he opens Wilde’s door, the smell of blood freshly cloying his nose, Wilde barely looks up.
The kid’s crying. He doesn’t seem to notice, because he’s not wiping it away, but there are tears dripping off his nose and chin and there’s a gleam of metal in his hand and both wrists are bloody, all over, back of his hand all the way up to his elbow.
“Kid.”
Wilde looks up slow. His eyes are blank and tired, and red, and they slowly focus on Victor like it takes some effort.
“Hi,” he says absently, and moves the blade down to his stomach.
“No—“ Vic’s across the room in half a second, Wilde’s wrist caught in his hand. Tears stream down his face faster and he doesn’t make a single noise. “Kid— Wilde. Wilde, baby, talk to me.”
“You’re not real,” Wilde tells him, and Victor’s breath catches in his throat. “I know you’re not real.”
And then he’s yelling at nothing. His voice is loud, sharp, and he’s crying and he’s yelling.
“You can stop the stupid fucking act!” He yells, wrenching his hand out of Vic’s grip and standing. Pacing. “I know this isn’t real! Let me out! Stop it!”
Victor feels a sense of horror he hasn’t felt in a long time.
His phone is in his pocket. He reaches for it.
Sabes
get ovr here now
Wolves
wtf its like 12
Sabes
kids having a breakdown
ur better at this than me
get ur ass on ur motorcycle
Wolves
holy fuck
Wilde rants for a long time. Screams for a long time, until he’s hoarse and then until he starts coughing every time he inhales.
Vic sits with him through it all. Holds him close, sitting on the floor, Wilde’s head pressed into his shoulder and hands fisted in his shirt and muttering nonsense at nothing.
“I’ll kill you,” he tells Vic, “I’ll kill you please just let me out let me out I don’t want to hurt anyone else I don’t care where I am I’m scared,”
And he keeps it up until Vic heard the rev of a motorcycle coming to a stop outside and then heavy footsteps and then Logan’s in the doorframe and he looks worried, too.
“Hey. Kid,” he tries, stepping carefully into the room, and Wilde’s attempt at a scream is just a whisper.
“No!” he begs, and he sounds so scared. “Not you, too. No. I know you’re not real. I know you’re not real, you’re not, you’re watching me for him I figured you out, you fucking bitch, stop it!”
Logan looks at Vic. His mouth is pressed into a thin line, and he steps closer until he’s settled in Vic’s lap on the other side of Wilde.
“Who’s watchin’ ya?” he asks softly, voice gruff. He puts his hand on Wilde’s shoulderblade, the one that isn’t marked by the insignia of ram horns and a crown, and rubs in circles.
Wilde whimpers. “Bode. Please—“
Bode. That crime syndicate piece of shit.
“Okay,” Logan says gently. “Why?”
“This isn’t real,” Wilde presses his face into Vic’s coat, “This isn’t real you’re not real I can’t get out—“
“Hey,” Logan interrupts. He reaches around to Wilde’s front. Takes the kid’s hand, wraps it in his. “What’s that?”
“…Your hand.”
“Does it feel real?”
“Uh-huh.”
Logan nods. “Good. That’s right. ‘Cause I am real, cub. An’ so is Vic, an’ so is here. You like it here, right? Vic’s nice to ya?”
Wilde sniffles. “He’s too nice. It can’t be real.”
Victor’s pretty sure he’s somewhere close to crying. Wilde seems so assured of that. That he isn’t real, just because he loves him.
“He’s too nice?” Logan repeats.
Wilde mumbles something, then says it louder. “Nobody’s s’posed to love me.”
Vic’s chest aches. Logan takes a short breath, exhales it slowly.
“I love you. Vic loves you.”
“I know,” Wilde tells him. He’s still crying, and the blood on his arms is slowly crusting over. “I know.”
Vic and Logan exchange looks. Logan tilts his head at the mess of Wilde’s arms and clothes, and Vic nods.
“Hey, li’l man,” Vic offers softly. “How ‘bout we get you cleaned up? And we can check everything. Make sure Bode isn’t watchin’.”
They both know full well that he isn’t. Bode is dead, very dead. Wilde killed him. But this boy doesn’t know that. This boy is just scared. But he nods, lets himself be picked up and carried into the bathroom and sat down in the tub.
Logan carefully cleans Wilde’s cuts, with antiseptic and soft tissue. Wilde watches through half-lidded eyes.
It’s only after Vic leaves the room to make tea that Wilde says anything.
“I was doing so good,” he says hollowly, staring at the angry red slashes across his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“We all have setbacks,” Logan tells him. “It’s okay. Vic’s not mad.”
“…Are you?”
Yes. No. Logan’s not sure.
“…Not at you,” he decides to say eventually. “But at a lot of other people.”
“Okay.”
Wilde goes silent again.
Logan lets Wilde have the little box of X-Men band-aids, and Wilde carefully picks out one of each of them to cover his wrists.
Wilde changes into fresh clothes, and they’re in the kitchen by the time the kettle whistles.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Vic.
Vic gets down on his knees and hugs him, tight, so he can hug Wilde’s entire body. For good measure. “You don’t need to be.”
“But I am.”
Logan turns off the stove and pours the water into Wilde’s mug, dropping a chamomile tea satchet in it and leaving it to steep.
“Lemme see those wrists,” Vic says softly, and whistles when Wilde holds them out. “Damn. Got every aunt ‘n uncle, huh?”
“I didn’t want to leave anyone out.”
“Well, ya sure didn’t.”
Four ice cubes. Honey. Lavender syrup, from the big bottle on the shelf. Logan stirs it properly and hands it over to Wilde, who takes it with both hands.
Logan sits down, too, even though the cold of the tile floor seeps through his jeans.
“Thanks,” Wilde says tiredly. It comes out as barely a whisper. “My head hurts.”
“I bet.” Logan’s own head is pounding faintly. “Lotta cryin’ you did. Drink the tea.”
Wilde sips at it for a while, curled with his back to Vic’s chest. “Are you stayin’ over tonight?”
Vic cocks his head at Logan, raising an eyebrow.
Logan considers. “…Yeah, what the hell. They can survive without me.”
Wilde smiles a little, and Victor’s grin is entirely self-satisfied.
“I wanna sleep in your bed,” Wilde adds, and there goes the fucking (literally) plans. He snickers a little at Logan’s expression, and carefully holds his cup level when Vic picks him up.
“Fine by me,” Vic rumbles, heading out of the kitchen and down the hall. “But it’s still bedtime. No more weird shit, y’hear?”
“Yessir.”
So they get all carefully situated in Vic’s bed, Wilde tucked in the middle between them like a little sandwich.
He’s never once had a night free of terrors. But for once, when he wakes up the next morning, the details have finally escaped him.